Dixiecrat

Dixiecrat was the informal term for Southern Democrats who in 1948 refused to support President Harry S. Truman for reelection because he was too liberal on racial issues. The official name was the States Rights Party. They formed a third party that nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, who carried four states in the Deep South where he was the official nominee of the Democratic party, gaining 39 electoral votes. Thurmond had 1.2 million popular votes, or 2.4% of the national total. The party did not nominate any other candidates at any level, and dissolved after Truman won the election. The Dixiecrats went back to the Democrats, where they came into increasingly more conflict with the liberal sections of the party, and eventually abandoned the Democratic Party for the Republican Party after the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

Further reading

Frederickson, Kari. The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968 (2001) 310 pgs. online edition